01The short answer
On your own driveway or private property: no permit, anywhere we work. In the public street, the swale or the right-of-way: yes, and it varies by city. Tampa is the expensive, slow one. Lakeland is free for most jobs. Davenport and Bradenton do not publish a clear rule and need a phone call. Auburndale wants a permit from the city manager. In Plant City and in unincorporated Hillsborough, including Thonotosassa, we found no street option at all, so the can goes on your property.
Two things that are not the same and get confused constantly:
- A city permit is a legal requirement, enforced with fines and removal. It only applies to public property.
- HOA approval is a private contract between you and your association. No city can help you with it, and no hauler can look it up for you. See the last section.
We will tell you which one your job needs before you book. We do not pull permits on your behalf — the permit is issued to the property owner or the contractor of record, not the hauler.
02Tampa — a real fee and a real queue
Tampa is the strictest of the four and the one worth planning around. City Code Sec. 22-8(a) makes it unlawful to place “in or upon any place, street, sidewalk, alley…any article or thing without a permit”, and Sec. 22-60 adds that it is unlawful to work in city right-of-way without one. The city can remove an obstruction at the owner's expense.
The fee schedule has a line item named for exactly this — “Temporary Structure in ROW (Dumpster, Trailer, PODS)”.
| Item | City fee |
|---|---|
| Temporary structure in ROW — base | $50 |
| Permit fee | $100 |
| Sidewalk closure | $100 |
| Residential driveway | $100 |
| Lane closure, non-arterial | $50 |
The city's own page puts right-of-way review and approval at 12 to 15 business days. If your job needs a street placement, the application is the first thing you do, not the last. Transportation Services, 306 E. Jackson Street, 4th Floor East — (813) 274-3104, submitted through Accela.
Once you have it
- At least 10 feet of traffic lane stays clear (Sec. 15-44).
- 36 inches clear all round any fire hydrant.
- Construction Services can issue a stop-work order over the obstruction, not just over the building work.
Brick streets are their own problem. Tampa's restoration standard requires work disturbing a listed historical street to be restored with the original bricks, palletised and returned to the city's Mobility Department, with the permittee liable for a year. In Ybor, Hyde Park, Seminole Heights and Tampa Heights we put the can on the driveway or we find another plan.
03Lakeland — free for most jobs
Lakeland requires a Non-Utility Right-of-Way Permit from Public Works Engineering for anything in the street. Roll-offs are named in the permit provisions directly: the city reserves the right to require removal of “permitted solid waste roll-off containers from on-street parking space locations”, with 24 hours' notice before the city removes it at your expense.
The good news is the fee tier most residential jobs land in costs nothing.
| Situation | Fee |
|---|---|
| Outside downtown, 90 days or less, 300 ft or less | No fee |
| Outside downtown, longer or larger | $250 |
| Inside downtown, 30 days or less | No fee |
| Inside downtown, beyond that | $250 to $500 |
| Extra downtown on-street parking spaces | $70 to $330 a month |
Lakeland maintains 56,000-plus public street and park trees and its Parks crews list “lifting tree canopies for vehicle access” as a standing duty. A roll-off truck needs vertical clearance to raise the bed. In Beacon Hill, East Lake Morton and older Dixieland streets it is not always there, and it is the most common reason a Lakeland delivery gets repositioned on arrival. Send a photo of the driveway looking up.
Alleys are out. Lakeland runs alley collection but will not do bulk or special pickups in alleys at all, citing space and safety. If the city's own trucks will not work an alley, ours will not either.
04Davenport and unincorporated Polk County
This is the honest one: neither the City of Davenport nor Polk County publishes a container-specific street permit rule that we could verify. We are not going to invent one.
What we can tell you:
- Polk County right-of-way permits are for utility work. The county issues them to registered utility companies, agri-chemical companies and municipalities — it is not a general container permit.
- Most of Four Corners is unincorporated county, not city. A Davenport mailing address does not mean City of Davenport jurisdiction. This catches people constantly.
- State law still applies. Florida Statute 316.2045 prohibits wilfully obstructing the free and normal use of a public street, regardless of what any local code says.
- Call the city if the can is going in the street. Davenport City Hall, 1 S. Allapaha Avenue, (863) 419-3300. One phone call, free, and it settles it.
On a driveway — which is where the overwhelming majority of Davenport jobs go — none of this applies.
05Bradenton and Manatee County
Bradenton's trap is jurisdiction, not fees. A great many addresses with a Bradenton mailing address sit in unincorporated Manatee County rather than the city. Different authority, different process.
| If you are in | Who to ask |
|---|---|
| City of Bradenton | Public Works & Utilities, 888 13th Ave E — 941-708-6300, Mon–Fri 7:00–3:30 |
| Unincorporated Manatee County | Public Works, Infrastructure Engineering — Right-of-Way Use Permit, online portal |
Island jobs have a different constraint entirely. Anna Maria Island has three road connections and all three are drawbridges. The Cortez Bridge replacement began construction in September 2026 and runs roughly 1,200 days, with traffic shifts along the way. For island work, timing matters more than permits.
06Plant City, Auburndale and Thonotosassa
The three newest towns on our list give three different answers.
| Town | A can in the street |
|---|---|
| Plant City | No permit for it that we could find. The city code makes obstructing any public street, alley or sidewalk an offence, and the obstruction has to be removed. Driveway or your own lot. |
| Auburndale | Inside city limits, a permit from the city manager first. The code makes blocking a street, curb, gutter or sidewalk without one unlawful. No fee is published. Outside city limits, Polk County rules apply, as above. |
| Thonotosassa | Unincorporated Hillsborough County. The county's commercial collection rules say containers cannot be placed on the public right-of-way, and its right-of-way permit is written for construction, development and utility work. Keep it on your property. |
More on each town, including what the local pickup refuses and where the load goes: Plant City, Auburndale and Thonotosassa.
07The HOA question — and why no city can answer it
This is the one that actually stops jobs, and it is not a permit at all.
HOA rules are private covenants. They are not public code, they are not on any government website, and they vary street to street inside the same subdivision. No city will rule on them and no hauler can look them up for you. If your community has an association, the association's rules are the binding ones, and they are frequently stricter than the city's.
What HOAs commonly restrict
- How many days a container may sit. Often far shorter than any city permit window.
- Where it may sit — some require it out of sight of the road, which on a small lot can mean nowhere.
- Advance notice to the board or the management company.
- Gate access for the delivery truck, which usually needs arranging rather than assuming.
In Polk County, white street signs mean a private road and green means county-maintained. It matters more than it sounds. The county cannot legally collect debris from a private road until the HOA officer or road owner signs a FEMA Right of Entry and Hold Harmless Agreement. After a storm, if your community is behind a gate and nobody signed that form, county crews are not coming.
Ask your association two questions before you book: how many days, and where. Then tell us the answers and the gate code. That is the whole conversation.
08What we need from you
Booking a can is faster if you have already worked out which of these you are:
| Where it goes | What is needed |
|---|---|
| Your own driveway, no HOA | Nothing. Book it. |
| Your own driveway, HOA community | Days allowed, placement rule, gate code |
| Street, outside Tampa | A call to the city — usually free, sometimes instant |
| Street, in Tampa | ROW permit, $150, applied for 3 weeks ahead |
| Brick or historic street | Talk to us first. Usually the answer is the driveway. |
Send a photo of where you want it and we will tell you which row you are in.